The present invention relates to a working vehicle, such as a tractor, and relates more particularly to improvement of a steering-wheel or handle periphery section of a driver""s or operator""s section of such vehicle.
An operator""s section of a working vehicle is known from e.g. Japanese published utility model gazette No. Hei. 5-47698, in which a panel cover made of synthetic resin is disposed forwardly of a steering wheel, and an instrument panel is attached to a rearward opening formed in the panel cover.
The instrument panel mounts collection of a number of instruments such as an engine tachometer, an oil temperature gauge, as well as various electric devices such as pilot lamps and so on. Hence, the entire instrument panel is a rather heavy component. For this reason, in the case of the prior art such as the one identified above, in order to allow the resin cover to support such heavy panel, various arrangements would be needed, such as attaching a reinforcing metal element to the rear face of the panel, increasing the thickness of the resin forming the panel, or forming a reinforcing rib on the panel.
For the reason above, the freedom in designing the attachment construction to the machine body would be restricted disadvantageously. Moreover, synthetic resin having superior strength is usually inferior in moldability. Hence, use of such resin would present difficulty in obtaining required precision in finish dimensions. Conversely, synthetic resin having superior moldability is usually inferior in strength. Hence, use of such resin would present the difficulity of assuring sufficient strength for supporting the instrument panel. In either way, there was room for improvement.
In view of the above-described state of the art, a primary object of the present invention is to overcome the above-described drawbacks of the prior art by providing an improved construction having sufficient strength for supporting the panel cover and the instrument panel.
For accomplishing the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a working vehicle comprising: a main frame; a frame member secured to the main frame; an instrument panel secured to the frame member and having a display face; a panel cover defining an opening for exposing the display face to an operator and covering the periphery of the instrument panel, the panel cover being detachably attached to the working vehicle.
According to the construction described above, the instrument panel is secured to the frame member which in turn is secured to the main frame, so that there is no necessity of providing significant reinforcement to the panel cover. Therefore, the panel cover may be manufactured more easily and the instrument panel may be supported with sufficient strength at the same time.
Further and other objects, functions and effects of the invention will become apparent from the following description of one preferred embodiment of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.